Buyout plan drawing rebuke
STAMFORD — Although South End developer Building and Land Technology won city approvals to build two more luxe residential towers on the peninsula with little pushback, it will likely Tuesday face opposition to its controversial plan to buy its way out of providing affordable units in the towers. That plan, for the 22-story towers that will soon rise on the Pacific Street waterfront — off the corner of Pacific Street and Harbor Point Road — has already garnered strong rebukes.
The scale of the project, part of BLT’s $3.5 billion overhaul of the South End over the last decade, has some longtime residents worried as it adds to a rapidly sprouting skyline.
Their neighborhood, they say, is being eclipsed on all sides by high rises.
“We’re losing sight of the whole neighborhood with all these apartment buildings,” said Sue Halpern, a South End resident and vice president of the community’s Neighborhood Revitalization Zone.
“I bought [a condo] down here 30 years ago,” she said. “We’re being boxed in.”
But Zoning Board hearings on the
“We’re losing sight of the whole neighborhood with all these apartment buildings.” Sue Halpern, South End resident
towers, which the board approved June 4, prompted little public comment, and most discussion centered on the building’s aesthetic qualities: The board pushed BLT to use different materials than its other buildings.
Lisa Feinberg, an attorney for BLT, has said the size of the proposals was approved long ago when the city approved general plans for the South End.
Zoning declined to discuss the affordable housing aspect of BLT’s plan, opting to wait until it hears what the Planning Board thinks on Tuesday. As it stands the towers, which will have a total of 435 units, must contain some 44 affordable apartments when it goes up if the plan now before Planning is denied.
When the proposal — which calls for BLT to send the Housing Development Fund, a local nonprofit, $9 million — was first floated at planning this spring, one member called it racist.
As outlined in city land-use records, the $9 million will go to a revolving loan fund, down payment assistance and expanding the neighborhood’s stock of homes that are restricted by land deed to only house low-income resi- dents. But unlike all of BLT’s other buildings on the peninsula, each of which with 10 percent of all units set aside as affordable, these new towers will have none.
“Through this program, we will be able to preserve and expand affordable housing in the South End for a greater number of households than is required on site,” the nonprofit wrote.
The Planning Board will meet in city hall, in the fourth floor cafeteria, at 6:30 p.m.